


Farewell

by RiverOfFandoms



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Dark, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-07 11:16:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverOfFandoms/pseuds/RiverOfFandoms
Summary: You and the others (Gally, Newt, Thomas, Minho, Teresa and Brenda) are all invited to spend a weekend up at Minho's holiday house. Except, soon after your arrival, strange things start to occur as memories and guilt resurface. What happened that last summer and why can't you let it go?





	1. Part One

You spun the dial on the radio to turn the volume down as the car began to slow. You stared up at the massive house that stood against the thick woods with wide eyes and mumbled, “I thought Thomas said it was a cabin…”

Gally turned off the ignition and peered up at the house through the windshield, “Yeah… well, Thomas has never been one to describe things well. Besides, it’s Minho’s family’s holiday house, of course it would practically be a mansion.”

You nodded your head in agreement but couldn’t quite get over how big the house seemed on the outside. The property must have stretched over a good few acres, too, since Minho mentioned something about hiking trails and bonfire areas. But you never realized that they would _own_ it all.

You stepped out of Gally’s bomb-of-a-car and waited beside the back of it as he begrudgingly pulled at the trunk. It always stuck firmly, every single time, but Gally never was bothered to get it fixed. He insisted that it gave the car character… as if the car needed anymore character than the faulty engine light, the in-and-out audio of the radio and the splitting leather of the car seats. Of course, you would never tell _him_ that, it would only get him arguing with you and you’d done that too much today already.

It started with fighting over the playlist and then Gally getting you both lost.

“You gonna help me or what?” Gally interrupted your thoughts as he held two bags in his hands while gesturing with a nod of his head toward the rest.

You quickly snapped up the bags, sitting one of the straps onto your shoulders as you grabbed the ones left.

Gally shook his head before heading toward the house, “You always bring way too much stuff, you know that?”

You rolled your eyes, “Yeah, and you wear the same shirt every day.”

“I do not—” but before he could continue with his disagreement, another car pulled up in front of the house.

It was a station wagon with loud music pumping through the windows. You waved and smiled at the two boys in the front seats before they stepped out of their car, “Thomas, Newt, hey!”

“Hey!” Thomas said as he closed the passenger door, while Newt turned off the ignition. Teresa and Brenda jumped out of the backseats and greeted you too.

Then Minho came out from the entrance to the house, the doors swung behind him with a _thump_ , “You shanks took your time! I’ve been here since morning.”

“Sorry!” you called out as you continued walking up the steps toward Minho, “Gally got lost.”

Gally shot a glare over at you, “You told me to go down that street!”

“No,” you countered, wide-eyed, “you turned down the other street! I was telling you to go down this one—”

“A year passes and you’re still the same old married couple,” Newt commented as he passed both you and Gally, “sometimes I can’t bloody believe you’re childhood friends.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, “how have you not killed each other yet?”

“Self-control,” you muttered, but only Gally heard you.

You all walked into the house and you stared up in awe at how high the ceiling was. The others began to head over to the bedrooms but Gally stood beside you and said, “You’re gonna drop all your bags staring up at the ceiling like that.”

You poked your tongue out at him and walked away, he really loved pushing your buttons, it was basically how your relationship had been all these years. You would always count him as a friend but there were definitely times when he frustrated you to tears. It was a strange friendship you had but you cherished it nonetheless.

You dropped your bags by the foot of your bed. You thought you’d be sharing with one of the girls, or both of them, but since the house was so big, apparently there were enough rooms for everyone. You thought about lying down for a bit, driving always made you tired, but you could hear excited voices from the first-floor echo up to your room and hesitated.

Instead, you decided to unpack your bags. You didn’t feel like joining the others just yet and after spending hours in the same car with Gally, you needed a good break from people. Even if it were only ten minutes. You just needed to think, or, dwell on the past for a bit.

You snapped open your suitcase and started to fill up the small, wooden wardrobe that most rooms seemed to have. You put most of your clothes on hangers and carefully laid out your shoes on the wooden floorboards beside the wardrobe. You were going to be here just a little bit over the weekend, three nights, like everyone else, so you wanted to bring some good options. That’s something that Gally just didn’t understand.

The bed was queen-sized, and the linen was a simple white. There were a couple of paintings hung on the walls and a balcony, too. You eyed the view of the woods and smiled, you always loved the look of old trees and greenery, the smell of wood and crackling fires at night. You hoped that there would be a bonfire tonight.

Your eyes scanned the rest of the room briefly until they stopped on a framed photo sitting beside your bed. You blinked and felt your chest tighten, you couldn’t bring yourself to walk towards it, all you could do was stare.

It was a group photo of two summers ago spent down at the beach house you all rented together. You were all smiling in the picture, you remembered that day. It was hot, so hot that the sand warmed your feet. You remembered the salty air and the crashing of the waves and the blow-up beach ball that kept deflating because there was a tiny hole near the opening. It was a happy day, even though Gally made it his mission to dunk you under the ocean water every chance he had.

Your eyes skimmed the faces in the photo and stopped at one, “Alby…” he was smiling too and you felt your heart shudder.

There were a couple of knocks on the side of your door frame and a head popped in, “You coming down, or what?”

You looked over at Gally, “Yeah, in a sec,” you looked away from the framed photo and pretended to busy yourself with zipping up your empty suitcase and sliding it under your bed. You were hoping he would walk ahead but he didn’t move.

“Unpacked already?” he questioned as he stepped further into the room, “no time to waste with you, huh…”

You stood up immediately and hid the photo from his view by standing in front of it, “Ready!”

He gave you a strange look, but you quickly ushered him out the door and shut it behind you, suddenly noting that it would be tough to hide the photo with Alby in it from Gally since he has a tendency to hijack your bedroom. Always has.

You followed him down the stairs and met up with the others, all the while admiring more parts about the house as you saw them. Everything was obviously carefully chosen to fit the old country style theme, but with modern, fresh pieces that looked well-maintained.

Gally turned to look up at you as you stepped off the last step, “You know, you look like an idiot with your mouth open like that.”

“Well, you look like an idiot no matter what you do.”

He opened his mouth with a come-back ready, but Minho quickly interrupted, a neat trick that most people caught onto over the years to stop you both from arguing so much, “Welcome to the holiday house!”

“When are we gonna break out the beer or whiskey and get drunk, I wanna watch Minho sing those Korean songs he listens to,” Newt said, his hands in his khaki-pant pockets.

Everyone laughed at the memory of Minho singing and dancing to (although barely) Korean pop songs on the beach at night. You remembered that night, the crackling fire and Gally’s stupid concoction of liquor, it was probably what got Minho drunk in the first place.

Minho shook his head, “I have no memory of that, so it didn’t happen,” he smiled with his teeth and laughed, “I’ve got something a little less embarrassing planned. There’s a hiking trail that leads to a creek.”

“Pretty sure I’d rather just crash out on the couch for a bit,” Brenda said, “especially a couch that big with a TV _that_ big.”

“Hey! We came up here to be one with nature!” Minho argued, “besides, the creek is big enough to swim in. And the hiking trail isn’t a marathon.”

“Yeah, me and Minho run it all the time,” Thomas said with ease.

Newt scoffed, “Yeah, but you lot are bloody obsessed with running! You did track in high school!”

“It’s an easy walk, I promise,” Minho said, “look, do you really just wanna sit around and watch TV?”

Newt smiled, “Guess not, just like giving ya’ a hard time is all.”

“Anyone else?” Minho asked, raised eyebrows expectantly, and when no one replied he clapped his hands together, “okay, let’s go!”

***

Gally complained the whole way, he was not much of a walking kind of guy, but when he got to the creek, he changed his mind. You could tell by the way he relaxed his shoulders and stopped frowning so much.

You all were pretty hot and sweaty after the hike, it wasn’t too hard either, like Minho promised, but the hot sun beat down pretty harshly. If it weren’t for the shade of the trees, you’d all be a lot worse off.

Everyone stripped down to their bathing suits and all the boys plummeted themselves into the creek as soon as they could, splashing each other. There was a small ravine with piled up rocks which they jumped off of, Brenda included. Teresa waded in calmly and you toed the water briefly before staring up at the trees. The sound of splashing and laughing, and the smell of nature and the feel of hot sun on your skin reminded you of the summers you spent with these friends many times over. It was a tradition, of sorts, to go away together in the summer break.

You were all friends in high school, well, you were friends with Newt and Teresa, and eventually after graduating you all drifted into the big group you were now. Newt and Teresa were friends with Minho and Thomas and Alby (who were all friends because of their shared interest in team sports), while you were friends with Gally, whom after a lot of coaxing, finally became friends with everyone else. And then Thomas became friends with Brenda in his first year at college, and this was the group.

It wasn’t always a functional group, but everyone had their moments.

“Hey, Y/N, if you don’t get in the water, I’ll chuck you off this ledge myself!” Minho shouted from on top of the rock, his wet, naked torso shining in the sun.

“I’m being _one with nature_ in my own way, Minho!” you laughed and watched as Minho leaped from the rock, a big splash ensuing. Gally shielded himself from the mini-tidal wave with a concentrated frown.

“Y/N, there’s some watermelon in the cooler bag I brought if you wanted to cut it up,” Teresa said, her arm over her eyes blocking the sun.

You nodded and found Teresa’s blue cooler bag, ignoring the couple of beers that Newt must have secretly shoved inside. You took the piece of fruit, wrapped in plastic, out of the bag, and found a giant knife to cut it with. You set it down on the plate she brought and started cutting, after unwrapping it. It was only a half so there wasn’t much work to be done.

A shadow crossed over the piece of fruit and you noticed a pair of feet in the sand. You looked up and saw Gally, his hands on his hips, water dripping off him, “That’s not how you cut watermelon.”

You sighed and sat back, defeated, “Then you cut it.”

Gally didn’t argue, like you thought he might, “I will, since you can’t seem to do it right,” he took the knife from you, gently, and turned the plate so he could carve the fruit out. He didn’t say anything else and for a moment, you watched his concentrated green eyes as he carefully did his work.

You looked up at the others in the water and you thought of Alby, all of a sudden. You blinked and looked away at your hands.

“You…” Gally started, stopping cutting midway through the watermelon, “You’re being all quiet today, you know?”

You shrugged your shoulders.

He didn’t look away, instead he kept his green eyes on yours, “It’s weird,” he half squinted because of the sun.

You looked away from him, “Just tired.”

“Bull—”

But before Gally could finish his sentence, Thomas interrupted as he came over to you both, “Hey, you guys finished cutting the watermelon up?”

Newt followed closely behind, and so did Brenda, who commented on how slow Gally was at slicing it up. Gally shook them off and passed them the sliced pieces while he sped up to finish cutting the rest. You took a piece as Gally finished and stood up from the ground. The group ate their watermelon by Gally and you finished off your piece as you stepped into the cool water.

It came up just above your ankles, you stared at the small fish that occasionally swam by. The sun reflected in the water, dappled sunlight. The taste of watermelon on your mouth. You held the watermelon rind in your hand and thought about what Gally had said.

He could always tell.

You heard sudden splashing coming from behind you and seconds later, someone wrapped their arms around your waist from behind and lifted you up before plunging into the water, bringing you down with them. You were engulfed by the cool water immediately and thrashed against the person before you came up for air as quick as you could. You saw Minho come up for breath too, smiling widely at you. You splashed him, “Minho!”

“Gotta get you wet somehow!”

“Oh ha, ha,” you said and shook your head at him. You swam away and walked out of the creek, dripping wet. The sand caked your feet, it was a darker kind, since it was a creek it was more like dirt but a different consistency. You wiped the water from your face.

“More watermelon?” Gally offered, now standing. But he wasn’t really looking at you, he was watching Minho thrash around in the water after Teresa.

You shook your head, “I’m ready for some lunch, actually.”

“Got food up at the house!” Minho shouted, his mouth half-full of creek water. Teresa laughed and shoved him deeper, “feel free to go eat if you’re hungry!”

You waved at Minho to signal you’re leaving and turned to go back to the house. You noticed Gally following closely behind and he mumbled, “I’m hungry too.”

***

The house was cool when you got back, and you were thankful for the break from the sun. You wiped the sweat off your face and turned to Gally, “Where’s the kitchen?”

“Through the hall, at the end.”

You followed his directions and came into a huge kitchen. You immediately headed for the fridge and opened it up to see lots of food stocked up inside. “You want some cold water?”

Gally grabbed two glasses from the cupboard. You filled them and stifled a laugh as Gally gulped it down in seconds, you left the jug out for him to pour another glass.

“So, what kind of food should we eat? We have a lot of options. Sandwiches, dip…”

“What’s up with you?”

You frowned at him and closed the fridge. He was leaning on the stainless-steel island, his calculating stare held your own, “What are you talking about?”

“The car ride here, the creek… I can tell, you know,” he waited for an answer or explanation, but you couldn’t give him one, “I know when something’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, Gally,” you went to open the fridge again and busy yourself but Gally came around the corner and slapped his hand against the fridge door.

“Don’t bullshit me, Y/N, we’ve known each other too long for that crap.”

You opened your mouth to reply but the front door swung open loudly, and the rest of the group came in, no longer dripping wet.

“Man, I’m starved,” Thomas said, “what’s to eat?”

You stared up at Gally as they began walking down the hall, echoing laughter, but Gally didn’t move, he just held his gaze. You glared up at him, frustrated, you fled the kitchen down a different hallway. This house was so big, you figured you’d eventually end up in a familiar place.

Once you finally reached your room, you closed the door. You felt heated, agitated or frustrated, confused and… a lot of emotions were surfacing, and you didn’t like it. You glared over at the photo on your nightstand and slammed it down so you couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see Alby.

You heard the others laughing downstairs and it only made you feel angrier and you hated it. You hated being this way, but you couldn’t help it. You hated that Gally could tell, too. You didn’t want to sit on the bed because of the photo, you didn’t want to go downstairs because of the others, so you opened the balcony doors and they swung as you walked out.

The balcony was varnished wood and there was a small chair. You leaned onto the railing and felt the slight breeze through your hair. You were suddenly envious of Newt’s beer in the cooler bag and wished you had some, even if it were only cheap beer. You sighed against the breeze and felt the tears, leaning your head into your hands you cried and hated that you did.

***

The hallway stretched out before you. The door, locked, stood at the end of the hall. You heard the taps on, the water gushing. You heard it splash over the tiles and stream out into the carpet. But instead of water it was blood.

You sat bolt upright in your bed, the sweat made your clothing stick to your skin. You threw the blankets off and sat in the cold of the night, letting your sweaty body breathe and cool down. You realized you were breathing heavy and tried to stop but your mouth felt too dry.

You stood up from your bed and decided to get some water.

You almost forgot that you were sleeping in Minho’s holiday house. But the familiarity of the hall and the stairs came back quickly, and you could manoeuvre yourself around, even in the dark. It didn’t take long to get a glass of water and before you knew it, you were on your way back to your room. The house was old and empty in the darkness and normally you might be scared, worried about what was lurking around the corner or in the shadows, but it felt peaceful.

You reached your room and set the glass down on your nightstand after swallowing a mouthful when you noticed something moving in the dark. You blinked and felt your heart skip a beat but when you turned on the bedside lamp, you saw Gally, “Gally?”

He looked at you as if you weren’t really there, his eyes watery and distant. You knew why. It was his nightmares, sometimes they got better when he went away from home but sometimes, they would get worse. You walked over to him and gently took his arm, “C’mon, Gally, let’s get you back to bed.”

“I’ve got to get to the water.”

You led him out of the room carefully, “No, you’ve got to sleep now.”

“Okay…”

You were thankful that at least it wasn’t one of his night terrors, that would wake up the whole house. You could deal with those, but you weren’t sure how the others would react. It had happened once on one of your trips, but it was on the night that the others went out drinking while you two stayed home. It was a horrible one, too, but you managed to calm him down even then.

You sat him down on his bed and he got settled in back under his blankets, “Goodnight, Gally.”

“Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

But he didn’t say anything else, instead he grumbled and turned over in his bed. You smiled down at him briefly but felt the exhaustion of the day overcome you, so you tucked him in and closed the door behind you.

***

You slept well after waking up in the middle of the night, so well that you slept in longer than anybody else. By the time you opened your eyes, you could hear them bustling around in the kitchen downstairs or showering in the bathrooms on the second floor.

You rolled over onto your other side and squinted against the sun that filtered through the curtains over the glass balcony doors. You yawned and scrambled out of bed in time for Brenda to pop her head into the room and say, “You hungry?”

You smiled and nodded your head, “Though I’m still trying to wake up.”

She giggled, “Nice sleep? These beds _are_ the best. Thomas put on a pot of coffee so you should be awake in no time.”

“Mm,” you said, “coffee,” you followed Brenda downstairs, the house lit up in the morning sunlight, the breeze from late afternoon yesterday continuing in the morning.

You walked into the kitchen where Thomas and Newt were fighting over who would flip the pancakes and Teresa sitting by the window in the room next door, reading a book. Gally, supervising the others with squared shoulders and a focused frown, poured you a cup of coffee the instant you walked in.

He passed it to you carefully, “You actually look like you had a good sleep.”

“Only partly,” you took a sip of the hot drink, “and you?”

He tightened his lips together, “Guess so… Did I…?” he said quietly, not wanting to share with the whole group.

You nodded slightly, “But it was fine, easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Got you back in bed in no time,” you smiled. “Just thankful you weren’t lurking out in the woods.”

He breathed a sigh of relief, “Yeah, well, same here.”

You touched him lightly on the arm and took your drink into the room where Teresa sat quietly. She put her book down as she noticed your presence, “You slept in.”

You shook your head as you sat down across from her, “So everyone keeps telling me.”

“You been going okay?” her blue eyes were soft and concerned, and you went rigid under her stare.

You raised an eyebrow at her, “Fine, why?”

“I talked to Gally yesterday… he said something might be wrong,” she watched you carefully but all you could focus on was gripping your mug, “Is it Alby?”

Your eyes darted up from your drink to her blue ones and you didn’t even have to say a word for her to know she was right.

She leaned forward in her chair and placed her book down on the coffee table between you, “I’ve been thinking about him too.”

You shook your head, “It’s just… everything we do together, it reminds me of those times we spent with him.”

“I know,” she said quietly, “I really do,” she pressed her lips together tightly. “I think… maybe you should talk to Gally about it, too?”

You kept quiet. Teresa didn’t understand, Gally took Alby’s death pretty hardly. Of course, everyone was upset and grieved over his death in their own ways but Gally couldn’t let go of it that easily. Because of what happened.

“Just think about it,” she said, before Thomas yelped in the kitchen, interrupting your conversation. You both glanced to the kitchen to see Thomas running water over the side of his hand and Newt frustratingly cooking the last couple of pancakes. Gally was quietly sipping at his coffee just watching the whole fiasco, you could tell from here that he was amused.

You stood up from the sofa chair and walked into the kitchen, “You guys need my pancake-cooking expertise?”

“No,” Newt grumbled, flipping the last pancake, “just about done ‘ere anyway. Besides,” he glanced over at you, “wasn’t my fault, it was Tommy’s.”

“Was not!” Thomas argued, his hand still under the cold water. “You were the one who bumped into me!”

“Like I said,” Newt cut in, “Tommy’s fault,” he winked over at Thomas who only rolled his eyes back.

Everyone quickly settled around the plate of pancakes to fill their plates and then everyone wandered on over out to the patio to enjoy the warm sunshine. You refilled your coffee and took your pancakes out, sitting beside Brenda on the steps instead of one of the patio chairs. You looked out onto the greenery and felt the weight of yesterday roll off your shoulders.

Thomas walked out onto the patio and grumbled, “So I was left all the burnt ones then?”

***

The day went by pretty quickly, Minho and Thomas went for a run on one of the more difficult hiking trails, Brenda settled down on the couch for the afternoon and the rest of you, Teresa, Gally, Newt and you, went exploring into the woods.

You took your camera with you and snapped some decent photos of the trees and the sky, the sun filtering through the leaves and model shots of Teresa. She quite enjoyed being a model for you.

You snuck some of Newt, with his hoodie, scuffed jeans and long, blond hair but he soon recognized the sound of the shutter-button and a sequence of photos of Newt holding up his palm to cover his face from your lens commenced. He laughed but soon shied away from the camera and you took that to mean no more photos.

It was a much harder task to take photos of Gally. It was like he knew you’d try, well, of course he would, you always bugged him with your camera — even when you were both kids. But once you hung back from the group, you managed to snap a few. When he noticed, he stuck the finger up at you just as you clicked the button. His smug grin and bright green eyes only made it better.

You stared at the photo, once back at the house, and thought about how you would get it developed properly once you got back home. It was just one of those photos that made you smile.

The door to your room creaked open and Gally was there, recently showered with wet hair and the smell of shampoo and soap. He wiped his face, “You staring at my handsome face?”

You rolled your eyes, “I wouldn’t exactly use the word handsome but…” you laughed, and he shook his head at you. He wandered over to the bed and then sat down beside you, the weight shifted the mattress slightly. He was quiet for a moment, but he was often like that, so you didn’t take it to mean anything. But then he reached for the framed photo you turned face-down and froze as he stared at it.

You sighed but couldn’t bring yourself to say anything.

He sat back onto the bed again with the frame in his hands, he didn’t take his eyes off it. He didn’t take his eyes off Alby. “This is why you’re upset, right?”

You took the photo from him, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, it does, actually.”

You looked over at him in the eyes, defeated. “Everyone… everyone came here but no one is even thinking about him.”

“That’s not true,” he said quietly. “I think about him all the time.”

“And the others?”

“How would you know if they weren’t?”

You fought the urge to pout at him because you knew he was right. A moment passed and a thought crossed your mind, “I had a nightmare last night.”

“I thought I woke you up?”

“Nope,” you sighed. “I was getting a glass of water before I saw you standing in my room.”

“The same nightmare?”

You swallowed, “Always the same,” you placed the frame back onto the bedside table, “I see the door, I hear the water and then I see the blood. Alby’s blood.”

“I’m sorry.”

You stood up from the bed suddenly and tried to shake those thoughts away, “Not your fault.”

“No, I’m sorry I can’t… that I couldn’t help you through it like you do with me all the time.”

You smiled sadly at him, “I know you would if you could.”

“Wake me up next time.”

You shook your head, “I’m sure… I’m sure it was just one-off. The last time I had that dream… it hadn’t reoccurred for months.”

“Just tell me you will, anyway.”

You opened the door further, your hand rested on the doorknob, “Maybe.”

***

You weren’t the one to wake Gally up because of a nightmare.

It was 2 in the morning when you heard the first shout. Your eyes were open in a flash, since being a much lighter sleeper than usual. You sat up in your bed, dizzy from sitting up too quickly and confused at where you were _again_. You blinked and heard something, a noise you couldn’t quite describe, coming from Gally’s room.

You slid out of bed with ease, finally remembering that you were in Minho’s holiday house. You didn’t bother to put on a hoodie to cover your pajama shirt which clung to your braless torso – it was dark enough, and Gally was in need of some help.

You creaked open his door, thankful that he was still in his bedroom. Except he wasn’t, because the last sound must have been him leaving his bed. You stared at his empty sheets and your heart beat fast in your chest. You left his room and stared down the hall, all other doors were closed. You ran to the banister of the stairway and looked down, you didn’t see anyone downstairs but there was a faint shuffling sound on the carpeted rugs.

You sprinted down the steps as best as you could, so you wouldn’t trip, but you still couldn’t see him. You knew not to wake him but sometimes he would still communicate with you when fast asleep. You gently, and quietly, called out his name. Repeated it as you walked through the first-floor.

Finally, there was a flash of movement down one of the hallways and so you followed. The rustling of his bare feet became less and less until you were sure he must just be standing still. When you rounded what you thought was the last corner, you saw a tall figure standing near the windows.

“ _Gally_ ,” you whispered.

But he didn’t turn around, instead he just stared out the window. They were floor to ceiling, covered in curtains, but he peered through the slit in the material.

“Gally,” you said, and took a step towards him, “Let’s go back to bed, alright?”

There was still no answer, not even a register that you were there talking to him.

You neared him, still a dark shadow in this darkened house, and reached out towards him with one hand—

“Y/N?”

Your heart stopped and you whipped your head around to see Gally standing _behind_ you, his green eyes awake and concerned. You shuddered away from the window but there was nobody there, nobody at all. “I—”

“Did you have a nightmare again?”

“No,” you argued, “No, I… You had a nightmare…” you turned to look at him again, “You woke up and I followed you downstairs, I…”

He frowned, hard, “I woke up and went to pee.”

“But you shouted…”

“Yeah, and then I woke up and went to pee,” he repeated, staring firmly at you, “I never came downstairs until I heard _you_ wandering around down here like an idiot, calling my name. I figured you were sleep walking.”

“But…” you looked back at the window. The person you saw was tall and like Gally, but now that you thought more carefully of it, it wasn’t _as_ tall, or _as_ broad-shouldered… You swallowed and walked past Gally, “Must have been dreaming,” but you knew you were not.

Gally walked with you back upstairs to your room and he said goodnight, and half-joked, “If you need me in the night, my room is across from yours, not downstairs,” and with that, you were back in bed under your blankets, but you were sure you wouldn’t get a wink of sleep after what you saw, after seeing… Alby.


	2. Part Two

You were up before anyone else, thanks to the haunting you witnessed last night – that, or you’ve completely lost your mind. You tried your hardest to shake away those events, but the thoughts of them were out of your control.

Even in the shower, you felt a lingering sensation that something was watching you. But you knew that it was probably because you were freaked out last night and the shower was the most common place to feel like you were being watched since you were at your most vulnerable.

Once you were done with the shower, the others were up and moseying around the kitchen, sleepily. You were the first to reach the coffee pot and fill it up. You leaned against the bench and stared as it heated up and filtered through, filling up the pot.

Newt came walking into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes sleepily, “Hey, did anyone hear a noise last night?”

You blinked but didn’t turn to look at him and instead waited for other people to respond first.

“I heard someone shouting,” Brenda said, “but that was Gally. He told me this morning.”

Newt shook his head, “No, no… it wasn’t someone shouting. It was like footsteps and… whispering or talking.”

“Didn’t you sleepwalk last night, Y/N?” Brenda said, finding your eyes. You looked up from the pot of coffee to see everyone staring back at you. You didn’t say anything, just stared at her, and she continued, “Gally told me…”

“You were sleepwalking up and down in front of my bedroom?” Newt questioned, amused, who’s room was still on the second floor but down a different corridor, with Minho and Teresa’s room.

You frowned, “No… I…” you spoke quietly, “I was on the first floor, not the second,” dead silence ensued the room for a single moment that seemed to stretch an eternity. You could feel the silence deep in your bones.

“Minho,” Thomas started, his voice amused but also nervous, “you didn’t tell me your house was haunted.”

Minho looked between you and Newt for a moment and shook his head, “You guys are dreaming. I’ve been to this house plenty of times and never heard any ghosts lurking in the halls,” he kept his cool in his voice, but his hands fidgeted with the sliced bread, “Besides, Y/N probably slept walk all over the house.”

You only shook your head, in time for Gally to make an appearance. He looked at everyone questioningly but no one else spoke, everyone suddenly felt too spooked to speak. You poured Gally a cup of coffee and passed it to him before pouring yourself one. You didn’t look him in the eye, the events of last night surfacing again. You took your coffee and left the kitchen, deciding it was too crowded and that you weren’t so hungry anymore. You sat out on the patio again and watched the birds in the trees as you sipped at your drink. Newt’s probable ghost story sat in the back of your mind as you finished your cup, what did it mean? Were you really being haunted, or were you all just “dreaming”? Imagining things? Or was Alby’s ghost angry that you all had forgotten about him.

You couldn’t seem to shake that last thought from your head.

“What’s this about a ghost?” Gally asked, standing barefoot beside you on the decking.

You had barely heard the backdoor creak open or Gally’s footsteps, so much so that his voice gave you a fright. You tried to steady yourself, “Newt heard someone pacing in front of his door last night. Minho’s blamed me for it even though I didn’t go down their hallway.”

“Oh… sorry.”

You raised an eyebrow up at him.

“For telling Brenda, she asked if I had heard anything last night too. She said it sounded like a shout and I told her it was me. Then I kinda got to talking about having to drag you back to bed…”

“It’s fine,” you sighed, “but I know I didn’t go near Newt’s room.”

Gally went silent and you thought he might just stand there in his silence, but he sat down beside you, and finally said, “I know. There’s no way you could have, I would’ve heard you walking past the bathroom,” he took a moment again, probably to think, but he was usually a quiet person so you thought that maybe he wouldn’t reply with anything more. But he opened his mouth and said, “You weren’t sleepwalking last night, were you,” he stated it, it was nowhere near a question.

You clenched your hands into fists anxiously, “I saw something, Gally. I thought it was you, so I followed, but it wasn’t you.”

“It was Alby.”

You turned to look at him and you could see in his eyes that he really did believe it too. But you weren’t sure how.

He nodded to reconfirm what he said, “It was him… I… I saw him too, only for a split second, but Y/N, I saw him too. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

You breathed in sharply, “What do you think it means? Are we crazy?”

“I-I don’t know…” he shifted his position nervously, “but if we both saw the same thing, how could we be crazy? Crazy isn’t viral.”

“But… a ghost, Gally?” you know what you saw but accepting that it was really true, really real, was a lot harder than you thought. “Maybe we both just _thought—_ ”

“Y/N,” he started, firmly, and you stopped mid-panic. He held your eyes, they were soft and reassuring but brutally honest, “We saw what we saw.” He glanced over the woods, now a lot more ominous than before, “Sometimes things just can’t be explained. Besides… we’ve both been thinking hard about him, haven’t we?”

You nodded.

“Maybe… maybe there is something he’s trying to tell us.”

“You can’t be serious?”

He hushed you quickly and looked to the patio door, when he saw that no one was listening in, he said, “Look, I don’t know much about ghosts or… spirits, or whatever. But I do know that Alby killed himself in that bathtub and it was a horrible death. Maybe… maybe a part of him is still here, maybe there was something he wanted us to know.”

You swallowed, suddenly feeling too overwhelmed and upset for this conversation. You knew what Gally was getting at. He knew you felt guilty and horrible, and so did he, and that you shared the same experience of finding Alby’s body. But the only difference was that he thought Alby was trying to reconcile, when you thought he was back for revenge. You stood up abruptly and said, “Then maybe he should have just written it down on a damn suicide note!” and with those harsh words, instantly regrettable, you angrily stormed back inside, passing the others in the process.

You were sure they heard what you said, but you ignored them completely.

***

The third day stretched out much longer than the first two and you were sure it was because of the awkwardness you created in the morning. You didn’t know how to fix it or if you should even try, so you left it to stew through the whole group all afternoon.

The truth was, you weren’t the only one upset about the Alby situation. Everyone knew him and were friends with him too. But no one else was there when he died.

You’d gotten a text from him, he said he wasn’t feeling well and that he needed some company. He’d been going through a lot, he was battling a secret drug addiction and was freshly kicked out of college, which meant he couldn’t play football anymore with the college team: the Gladers. He’d been losing friends fast and things weren’t the same with him. Basically, there were signs, which you all ignored, and you felt horrible.

You told him you were in class all day and that if it were possible, you would swing by afterwards. If only you ditched class and visited him, things might have been different. He texted Gally too, but Gally was stuck in construction work all day, neither of you made it on time.

Since Alby’s death, the group was a little disjointed. You didn’t meet up as much as you used to, and this summer break holiday was the first real time all of you caught up. Minho’s idea of moving on from the past, you figured, but no one could move on just yet. Not really.

But once the evening came, things had sat quietly between everyone for far too long and the atmosphere of the house changed: eyes flickered nervously and hands fidgeted, sentences were left unfinished and a heavy feeling of dread fell over each room, each person. Gally, usually making quiet jokes about you to your face became much quieter, and Newt stopped teasing Thomas so much.

Minho and Brenda were attempting to prepare dinner in the kitchen while everyone sat lazily over the lounges, the TV turned on but the volume quiet. Newt had already started on the beer, his second one sat in his hand. You were sitting on the floor, a cushion underneath you, your back propped up by the leather couch behind you, between Gally’s legs, his jeans touching your arms.

“What a good weekend, huh?” Newt stated, his voice only a little higher than usual. His brown eyes blinking lazily and unfocused.

Thomas frowned at Newt, “I can’t tell if you’re…” but he didn’t bother finishing his sentence.

Teresa glanced between the two boys who looked away from each other. Thomas visibly confused by Newt’s behaviour and Newt only irritated, you could tell by his slumped shoulders and occasional glare.

You felt Gally touch your shoulder, but you ignored him, even though you were annoyed by the conversation earlier, you couldn’t just plain act like Gally didn’t exist but that didn’t mean you’d have to talk to him. You shook him off, but he persisted by tapping your shoulder. You sighed and tilted your head upward so that his face was upside-down in your vision, “Can I help you?”

He raised an eyebrow at your attitude but decided against commenting on it, “You’re sitting on my foot.”

You fought the urge to roll your eyes at him and instead shuffled slightly so that he could readjust the position of his foot. He thanked you in a mumble and you couldn’t help but smile about it, although you hid it as best as you could. Even when Gally was grumpy or annoyed at you, he could still cheer you up. You’re not surprised by it since you’ve been friends since forever.

“Aw, how sweet,” Newt commented, framing the two of you with his hands, “the picture-perfect couple.”

You frowned at Newt who was obviously bordering on drunk, he was always a bit of a light-weight but it was worse because none of you had eaten any dinner yet. You felt Gally tense up behind you, so you responded first, “Funny joke, Newt.”

He looked at you and shook his head as he laughed, “But I’m not joking! When are you two going to wake up and smell the roses –wait, that’s not right, what’s the saying—”

“Newt,” Thomas said with a warning look, his voice even but stern.

Newt went to open his mouth, probably to argue with Thomas which you anticipated but thankfully, a loud noise came from the kitchen which resembled something along the lines of a curse. Minho’s voice echoed and then he appeared in the doorway, “Guys,” he started, “there’s an issue with dinner.”

“Yeah,” Newt replied carelessly, “you’re really slow at cooking it.”

Minho ignored Newt’s aggressive intoxication and said, “The food… it’s been spoiled, I don’t know how…” he sighed, shutting his eyes briefly before opening them again, “I checked the date before I bought it but apparently that doesn’t matter, I opened it up and it’s… definitely not edible.”

“So,” you started, calmly, “we go to the store and buy more food?” Everyone looked up at Minho expectedly, but his shoulders tensed.

“Except all the stores nearby closed an hour ago. We’re out in the countryside now, there’s no late-night shopping.”

“Well, Newt will need some food soon or he’s gonna piss somebody off,” Gally cut in, his voice agitated. You bit the inside of your lip knowing that Gally was already pissed off at Newt and only wanted to get him back for it.

Minho shook off Gally’s comment, but Newt didn’t as he sat glaring at him over your head. You pinched Gally’s leg, but he only nudged your back with his foot, he wasn’t going to hold off on giving Newt crap for his behaviour. You could already see how the night would go and you weren’t exactly ecstatic about it.

Minho sighed, “There’s not much left,” he eyed Thomas and Gally as they were the two who ate the most, “but we can probably scrape up some peanut-butter sandwiches or something…”

Gally nodded, “As long as it soaks up the alcohol—”

“Gally,” you warned, not even bothering to look up at him.

Newt smiled, “Yeah, _Gally,_ ” he mimicked the tone of your voice as he said his name.

You felt Gally move as he swung his leg over you to one side so that he could stand up, but you predicted his decision and stood up too. You stood in front of him and watched as he continued to glare at Newt, “Just let it be.”

Gally eyed you momentarily, his stare hard and his lips pressed firmly together, nostrils flared, before he brushed both you and Newt off by walking out of the living room, his feet climbing the stairs evident by the loud thumping that escalated to the second floor. You turned to look at Newt, “You didn’t have to push him, you know.”

Newt swallowed the last mouthful of his third beer and didn’t say anything at first. You wanted him to say something back, something stupid so you could tell him off, then maybe he would quit with the alcohol and stop being an ass. But instead of saying something stupid about you, or about Gally, he said, “If Alby were here, I wouldn’t be drinking alone,” and then he stood up from his spot and mumbled something about needing to pee while all you could do was feel your blood boil.

***

You didn’t bother to eat anything afterwards. But you did bring Gally a sandwich after a little while, letting him cool off before seeing him. You opened the door to his room, and he was lying on top of the covers of the bed, his arms folded underneath his head. He glanced over at you when he noticed your presence and eyed the sandwich you held. You passed it to him without a word and he ate it as you sat down on the edge of his bed.

He ate in silence until he was fed up with the silence, and after he finished his sandwich he said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

He rolled his eyes, “I know I was a prick but so was he.”

“Even if he was, he was drinking.”

“Not an excuse.”

“I didn’t mean to say that it was, it’s just… you should have ignored him.”

He didn’t say anything else.

“Are you gonna come back downstairs?” you asked as you stood up from his bed.

He contemplated a moment, “Are you gonna be annoyed with me still?”

You pouted and then sighed, “No, no… I guess not.”

He followed you downstairs where everyone had finished with making sandwiches, hopefully no longer “hangry”. You eyed Newt who seemed to be a little less pink-faced but would probably still be in a bad mood, you weren’t sure how to fix it or if you even could, but you just wanted everyone to get along since it was the last night here. But it seemed that with every day passing together, you were all distancing further and further away from each other.

It was only a little later in the evening, but it was already growing dark outside. You looked for a spot to sit down but your stomach grumbled and Gally raised an eyebrow at you. You ignored his stare, but he then said, “You haven’t eaten have you.”

You just looked up at him and he shook his head at you before heading to the kitchen. The others were busy talking about their afternoon and Minho cracked open a bottle of whiskey which you were sure wouldn’t be such a good idea after what happened earlier in the evening. You sat cross-legged next to Teresa on the floor who had a glass of wine, which she offered to you, but you decided against any alcohol until you’d eaten.

Gally sat down on the couch nearest to you after shoving a plate with your favourite kind of sandwich into your lap. You mouthed a thank you to him and he only shook his head at you, probably thinking why on earth you just didn’t make yourself one before making him one.

As you ate, Minho rambled on about a story from three summers ago. Something about finding Newt curled up outside his tent after getting drunk around the bonfire. Newt nodded along with the story and commented when he thought appropriate and Minho could only barely refrain from laughing out loud as he spoke. Apparently, Minho had successfully scared a drunk Newt by pretending to be some kind of animal, Newt admitted to thinking it was a bear, and for some reason unknown to either of them, he thought it would be a good idea to crawl to Gally’s tent because “Gally could totally fight off a bear if he wanted to” except as he crawled, he noticed that it was completely dark out, of course, and the fire had died down to tiny embers. He couldn’t see a thing. And because he was drunk, he couldn’t figure out how to find his way back as “it felt like a bloody boat on the sea, rocking from side-to-side” he couldn’t move a muscle. He thought about shouting for help, but he couldn’t hear the “bear” anymore and his drunk brain told him to just go to sleep, in which he did. And woke up, hungover and squinting from the early sun as a laughing Minho and Thomas stared down at him.

And then Newt added, “Yeah and if Gally refused to help me fight the bear, Alby might have tried.”

Minho laughed, shaking his head, “Alby would have been absolutely _furious_ with you if you had woken him up for nothing.”

“So would Gally,” you added, and gained an endearing scowl from him.

Thomas laughed loudly, “And then you would have much worse than a bear to deal with, nothing compares to an extremely pissed off Alby and Gally!”

Everyone laughed at what Thomas said about the pair of them, even Gally cracked a smile, but the lingering knowledge that Alby was no longer with you all cut it short. It had been a while since you laughed or smiled about him, it was a long time for everyone, you rarely talked about what happened or what happened before, anymore.

“You guys remember how Alby always used to get us to play _Mario Kart_ altogether?” Thomas started, smiling at the memory, “and he’d always whoop our asses, too.”

You smiled, “He was so bossy, especially when we played teams.”

“He had to be bossy, or you’d slow us down,” Gally said, honestly.

You turned to him with your mouth open, “Are you kidding? I was better than you!”

Newt laughed, “Even if Y/N did slow you down, which I’m pretty sure she didn’t, your team always beat us anyway.”

“I miss him,” Minho stated. His voice was noticeably different but only just and you realised that alcohol was the only way your friends would share how they felt. Ever since the death, everyone closed up, it became something that no one should talk about and you never understood why.

“So do I,” you said, quietly. You glanced over at Gally who looked deep in thought.

Newt opened his mouth to say something but was cut off when the light died down all of a sudden. You looked around you, but your eyesight was not adjusted yet and all you could see was black, all over the house, the lights were all turned off.

“Minho?” you asked as your heart beat fast in your chest.

You heard Minho scramble up from the chair. He fumbled with his phone before switching on its flashlight, “I… I’ll go look at the power-box, Thomas?” There was a nervous edge to his voice when he asked for Thomas’ help.

You heard Thomas move from his chair and finally saw his face beside Minho from the dim light that came from the phone, “Where is it?” Thomas questioned.

“Basement,” Minho breathed as he began to tread carefully toward the cellar stairs. He flicked on a few light-switches as he walked, just to make sure, but no light would come back on. They left the rest of you in darkness as their voices disappeared down into the basement.

You began to wonder if this happened often, you guessed being out in the countryside could mean frequent power-outages. You tried to tell yourself that, anyway, instead of dwelling on other reasons why it might occur.

Suddenly though, just as you thought you convinced yourself that everything was okay, a loud crashing sound came from the back of the house. You stood up from the ground in a fright and heard rain on the roof.

“What was that?” Brenda said as she stood up too, her face was illuminated for a second as a flash of lightning lit up the room.

“Thunder?” Teresa said, unsure.

You shook your head, even though nobody could see you in this darkness, and Gally spoke up and said, “No, it was closer than that. I think it came from the backyard,” you heard him also stand up before he walked down the dark hallway toward the kitchen where the backdoor was situated near. Seconds went by of silence and you felt strangely vulnerable in the dark but if you moved, even just the tiniest bit, you felt as though something bad might happen.

“It was the patio door!” Gally shouted, “it must have flung open…” his voice died down, but you heard his footsteps coming closer and closer.

“Someone… someone just must have forgotten to lock it, right?” Brenda said nervously, her eyes flashed in the dark and she looked terrified.

Newt sloppily stood up from the one-seater couch, “Or Alby wanted to come inside,” he tried to walk, you didn’t know where to, but he looked as though he might trip over air. You stepped closer to him just as he fumbled over his limp and caught him, but he shook you off immediately, “Let go of me.”

You let him go and he proceeded toward the basement, you guessed, and when you looked back to the others you saw them staring after him. You didn’t really take notice of what he had said because he was drunk but now that you thought about it…

“Newt,” Teresa started, “where are you going?”

A crash of thunder ensued and engulfed the house as the rain fell down harder. You shuddered at the loudness of the thunder, as if it were too sudden for the gradual storms you were used to. You felt Gally touch your elbow as he whispered, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” you muttered, but then the patio door crashed loudly against the frame as it swung open and then closed, and then opened, and the house was opened up to the rain again. The volume of it grew and you felt the wind even from where you stood.

“I locked the damn door…” Gally said in disbelief.

Gally’s words sent shivers down your spine but before you could think logically about the situation, three pairs of footsteps clambered up out of the basement as you heard three voices yelling and screaming. You turned to face them as they ran into the living room, all horrified, Minho’s phone’s flashlight bouncing crazily over the house.

Thomas huffed, out of breath, and said, “What _was_ that?”

Minho shook his head, “I…” but he couldn’t continue his sentence.

“What the hell happened?” Gally asked, as everyone hurriedly grouped together near Minho’s light source.

“We were…” Thomas tried to steady his breathing, “we were hunched around the damn fuse box trying to figure out how to fix the thing and…”

“And?” You questioned, hurriedly and anxiously, your mind spinning with awful and worried thoughts.

“And something… something pushed the storage cabinet over!”

“Someone,” Newt mumbled, and everyone went silent, it was just the rain that poured outside.

“Look, this house _isn’t_ haunted, Newt, what—” Minho growled, but couldn’t complete his sentence as Newt cut him off.

“ _I_ bloody heard Gally and Y/N talking this morning!” Newt piped up, “And what the hell did I hear last night, huh? Because it sure wasn’t Y/N sleepwalking, especially since she wasn’t even sleepwalking!” his voice was strained with desperation and emotion, but he couldn’t control himself anymore; he was frightened and so was everybody else.

Everyone turned to you and in the faint light, you could see their concern, feel it almost. You sighed, “I… Newt’s right, I wasn’t sleepwalking.”

“She saw Alby.”

You breathed in harshly at his directness about it all but weren’t surprised when you saw Minho roll his eyes at Newt and say, “Stop with this Alby business, you’re just freaked out because all of this is happening after talking about him—”

“No, I’m not—”

“Guys!” you interrupted, almost breathless from fear, “Just… just stop,” you decided to just bite the bullet, “Newt’s… I did. At least, I thought I did, you know, see Alby.”

Gally, who was next to you, confirmed his support of you, “I saw him too.”

“See?” Newt said, “I’m not just freaked out.”

Teresa spoke up softly, “Maybe… maybe we’re all just… just confused. I mean, he’s on all our minds…”

“Look, I don’t know, okay, I don’t know how to explain it. But it was what I saw, what Gally saw… I thought maybe I was just, I don’t know, confused, I guess,” you paused as you thought quickly but carefully, “but… not now. Not anymore, something is wrong.”

“Alby would never be this mean,” Brenda whispered quietly, being the friend who knew him for a lot less time than anyone else, she always seemed to disappear when the conversation turned to Alby, but not this time. Her eyes were wide, but she looked sure of what she said, like she truly meant it.

“He would if he was angry,” you stated it clearly and firmly, you didn’t care what Gally would say, how the others might argue, because it was what you believed.

“What’s he got to be angry about?” Teresa asked genuinely but quietly, her blue eyes wide in the darkness.

You licked your lips nervously as all eyes were on you. It was there, the words, they had been stewing inside you for such a long time that if you didn’t try to let them out, they would bubble and boil right over and come out as a hot mess. You felt your voice shake but you said it angrily, hurt, confused, all these emotions strung through the words, you couldn’t help but shake with fear, “At me, for not coming sooner, for not helping him or visiting him, for not _being_ there when I fucking should have, for—”

“For being like the rest of us?” Gally demanded; he was shaken by your sudden explosion of emotion, after being so closed off all weekend. Even though it was black as could be in the house, even though Minho’s light cascaded oddly over the walls, distorting everyone’s faces with strange, sharp shadows, even though the lightning flickered and the rain poured heavily, you could _see_ the warmth: you could see the kindness and care for you in Gally’s green eyes.

You could barely bring yourself to say anything more, it was like he had completely turned your world upside down with one sentence, one question, “I…”

“It wasn’t just you,” Newt said bitterly, his hand in his mess of hair and his eyes watery, reflecting the white light from Minho’s phone, “it wasn’t just you.”

You stared at Newt from across the huddle of people and heard the thunder in the distance break the silence. You didn’t know what to say. You thought Gally only meant that everyone was neglectful to Alby, that everyone could have been better, but what Newt was saying meant something more. You knew that Gally was the only other person contacted that day because you both showed up at the exact same time, to witness the same tragic event.

You breathed in deeply, but you were confused and uncertain, what would this all mean, had everyone been sharing the same turmoil since Alby’s passing? “What… what are you saying, Newt…?”

“I’m saying that you… _you_ and Gally actually showed up,” he shook his head, and in the darkness, you could see his hair fall slightly over his face, “you fucking showed up when we _all_ could have because we _all_ got his texts and calls! A-and none of us ever did, not any of us except you two.”

“You…” you frowned, not out of anger but disbelief.

Gally swallowed and blinked, evident that he’d just found out this information too.

“We could’ve been better, all of us, but at least you fucking tried,” Newt was close to sobbing so he stopped talking before one could escape, and he turned around and collapsed onto one of the couches: the freak weather and darkness, the strange things happening, all a lost memory.

It was still pouring when Thomas spoke up, “He didn’t…” he continued, firmer than before, “he didn’t kill himself because of us.”

Newt looked up from his hands and watched Thomas as he nodded to reconfirm what he had said.

“Yeah, maybe in another life or another universe, we could have stopped him on that day, but… it wasn’t because of us that he did it. He was in a bad place—”

“Thomas…” Minho started, his voice a warning tone.

“No,” Thomas continued, “no, he was, and we could have done more, we could have done more,” he kept nodding as he spoke, his voice barely nervous, he was so sure of himself, but there was honesty in his blue eyes and some kind of all-knowing tone in his words, “but we don’t know if that would have changed anything.”

No one else could speak, everyone just tried to process and understand that maybe Thomas was right.

“You can’t just put blame on yourself,” he said, directed at you as he held your stare for one moment, “or anyone,” he eyed Newt, Minho, the others, “it happened, and it was terrible. It was _terrible_ and I fucking miss him every single day,” he swallowed back the watery tears that sprung into the corners of his eyes, “but how could you know? If you’d only just done that or been there at that time or said this to him, no, none of that, _none_ of that—you don’t know for certain that _any_ of those things would have changed a thing.”

“You can’t dwell on those things, you just can’t. Alby… he’s gone now, but we can’t live the rest of our lives wondering what we could have done to change things because what happened, happened, and Alby… Alby was _good_ , he was a fucking saviour in the dark times, a light when—when nothing else was. He was the best friend he could be and it’s sad that he’s gone, but we had a fucking good time when he was here and that’s what I want to dwell on.”

The rain slowed to a stop, as if it were never there in the first place, and the wind no longer echoed through the halls of the house. There was darkness and silence. And something else, an energy, it pulsated through the walls and it made your chest tighten up.

The thunder completely stopped along with the rain and after seconds of heavy, stressed breathing from all of you, the lights turned on. You glanced around at each face, everyone was in shock and unsure of what could happen next. You moved away from the huddled group and walked toward the window that looked out into the front yard of the house, “The storm’s passed…” you said it quietly, like an afterthought. And the tension in your chest and in your shoulders rolled off and a sense of peace overwhelmed you.

“Y/N?” Teresa asked from the living room, the huddle of faces all staring at you.

You turned from the window and said, “The storm, it’s gone.”

***

The next morning, everyone awoke with a different kind of energy. After last night, after contemplating ditching the house in the middle of the night to drive anywhere else, everyone had settled in the living room and slept on the couches, the floor, anywhere, as long as you were altogether, it didn’t matter.

You were surprised that you had even fallen asleep. But after talking to the others, after sharing about what had happened _that_ day, the day Alby died, something changed. You felt lighter, you felt different. Everyone’s story was similar to yours. Everyone felt their guilt and dealt with it in their own ways, and everyone agreed that sharing what had happened to them on that day helped, even if it was just a little bit. It was all out in the open, it was all there for everyone to know and feel too, and that just made the support stronger.

You had curled up on the couch after everyone had fallen asleep, everyone except Gally. You two were the first to see Alby, and the last, because that night, after everyone fell asleep, that night you saw him one last time.

You were sitting on the couch, waiting for Gally to come back out of the bathroom. You wanted to double check with him if sleeping on the couch was okay because you hated being an inconvenience to anyone. It was then that you saw a shadow pass over the entrance to the living room. You stood up without thinking, your heart climbing in your chest, maybe it was just Gally, but when you stepped out of the living room and into the hallway, you saw the same shadow you did last night.

You watched Alby walk into the front entry. He stopped there for a moment. You didn’t understand what he was doing there, what you should do, should you wake the others? But it was too late because he turned to you as you stepped into the front entry.

Gally was there, too, at the other hallway near the stairs.

Alby didn’t say anything. He just stood there for a short while even though it felt like hours before he moved again. But he was there. And when the shadow, Alby, when he moved from his spot and you sucked in a breath, when he walked out of the front door, closing it behind him, when you leapt forward to open the door again and see where he was going he was gone. Just like that, he was gone, and it was only the cool, night breeze that met your skin.

“Was that…?”

You nodded your head and didn’t say anything else.

“He’s gone.”

You swallowed and let out your breath of air, “He’s gone,” you repeated Gally’s words and closed the front door quietly so it wouldn’t wake anyone else.

When you got back into the living room, you collapsed onto the couch. You were exhausted. And when Gally squatted down to lie on the floor beside you with a bundle of blankets that Teresa had found, you grabbed his arm. He stopped, paused more like it, and stared at you for a moment.

You curled up on the couch so that Gally could squeeze in beside you. After everything that had happened, you just wanted to be comforted, and so did he.

“Y/N?”

“Mm?”

He spoke quietly, a gentle whisper so none of the others would wake, “Why do you think it was us? That saw him? Why did he choose us?”

You thought about it for a moment, you thought about what Thomas said. His green eyes contrasted with the dark room, you held them with your own eyes, “Maybe he didn’t choose us. Maybe that was just the way it was supposed to be.”

“You really think that?”

You nodded. A thought came to mind and you opened your mouth, but you hesitated, and Gally saw. You closed your eyes briefly, “Gally?”

“Yeah?” his voice was quiet and uncertain.

You felt your eyelids grow heavy as the exhaustion filled you, you curled up against him, your head rested under his chin as you lay facing each other. When you didn’t say anything more, Gally didn’t push you and instead you both fell asleep together, his arm wrapped lazily over your waist. You both slept soundlessly through the night, like everyone else.

Come morning, everyone was busy packing their bags. They left you both on the couch without a word because everyone knew what it meant, and after last night, no one felt like giving each other a hard time.

When you woke up, you felt both of Gally’s arms around you, his face tucked in close to your shoulder. His breathing was soft and quiet, and the feeling of his arms around you stirred something within you and you felt… happy.

You walked into the kitchen sleepily, you decided to leave Gally asleep for a little longer since he was probably just as tired if not more. You poured yourself a cup of coffee and stood at the bench where the coffee pot sat and sipped at your drink.

“You’re up!” Minho said as he walked into the kitchen from being out on the patio. He poured himself another cup of coffee, “It’s still a little wet outside but because it stopped raining last night, we were thinking of one last hike,” he turned from the bench, “Gally up yet?”

You laughed a little, loving the subtleness of Minho’s words, “No, he’s not, but I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

“Sarcastic already? You only just woke up.”

You smiled, “I’ll get him up and encourage him to go,” you paused, “for the record, I would love one last hike.”

Minho smiled, “Good that.”


	3. Epilogue

It had rained all night but the morning was sunny and crisp, cooler than usual but you knew that the warmth would come soon over the next few days. You liked the rain, it settled your nerves and helped you sleep at night. Gally liked the rain, too, because he had fallen asleep quicker than you which is rare. Most nights he’d toss and turn beside you restlessly, sometimes he’d still have his nightmares and you would be thrown back into your teen years of trying to calm him down, sometimes they were so bad that you would have to keep at it for a few hours, on and off, but you didn’t mind, you never minded caring for him.

“Are you… okay?” Gally questioned beside you as he steered the car around another corner.

You smiled, “You’re observant today.”

“I’m always observant.”

You peered out the passenger window on your side, “Well, you know…”

“Doesn’t get any easier, does it?”

You looked over at him, nodding, “Exactly right,” you laughed, “I remember thinking about where I would be a year later, even three. I wondered if we’d even still be friends, all of us. If we’d still visit.”

“Well, it’s been three years, how good was your prediction?”

You looked at Gally beside you in his dark hoodie and jeans, suddenly realising that the pair of you looked a little older than three summers ago, “Doesn’t matter what I predicted, I’ve got you, haven’t I? That’s all I’ll ever need.”

He smiled.

The car was soon parked downhill, Gally had a little trouble with his parallel-parking but you were soon out of his car in no time. You waited for him to lock the car before beginning the mini hike up the round hill where the cemetery entrance stood firmly. From below, you could already see some familiar faces.

You waved up at Newt and Thomas who stood by the opened gate. When you both finally caught up with them, they nodded over up at the hill, “The others are already there but we saw your car coming ‘round the corner,” Newt said, and he looked over to Gally, “good to see you got rid of that shit-box you used to drive.”

Gally cracked a grin, “Looks like you’re still driving Thomas around everywhere, aren’t ya?”

Newt laughed and Thomas only pouted, and you all began to make your way up to Alby’s gravestone, in the distance, you could already see the others standing around it.

You shoved your hands into your coat pockets against the cool breeze and stood beside Gally as you all crowded around Alby’s gravestone. It was well-maintained despite the amount of wind and rain recently. You watched as Teresa and Brenda put down some flowers and everyone was quiet, thinking about the good times had with him.

“Four years now, right?” Newt said, staring at Alby’s engravened name. His blond hair ruffled in the breeze.

Minho nodded, “Four years…” He scratched the back of his head uncomfortably, maybe he was nervous, “still feels like yesterday… like, as if it were only last night that we squished around his shitty TV and played _Mario Kart_ or even _Super Smash Bros_ on his Nintendo 64.”

“Remember the storm?” Teresa said, her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders and she was huddled up in her knit jumper.

“How could I forget,” Minho said, and he chuckled, “I didn’t go back until you guys came with me. Couldn’t even begin to explain it to my mom when she wanted to do a family trip up there…”

“Nothing like that has happened since, though, right?” Brenda asked, confirming by glancing at everyone, while everyone nodded and mumbled back. It was true, each summer that you’ve gone back to the house with the others, nothing ever even came close to that one weekend. Sometimes you think you might feel something watching you over your shoulder or hear something in the night, but you don’t think anything of it, because even if it was Alby, you know that he was just checking in to see how everyone was going.

Minho touched the gravestone carefully, and Thomas and Gally followed lead but neither of them said anything more.

Newt opened up a flask that he took from his coat pocket and splashed a little on the soil near his gravestone, “Still drinking your favourite whiskey, even though it’s the cheapest kind,” he swallowed a mouthful and rose it in cheers, before adding, “still tastes best in the morning.”

When Newt was finished, you took your hand out of your pocket and placed a small brooch on the stone near the flowers. He was as much of a nerd as you were and loved a lot of the same things that you did, you would always exchange stupid things like brooches or bracelets, necklaces or thrifted tops that celebrated the comics or video games or movies you both enjoyed. This brooch was one of the last ones you bought, only a couple of days before he died, and only three days ago did you find it again.

“I meant to give this to you… when you died, I couldn’t find it, I spent hours looking for it before your funeral,” you kept crouched beside the gravestone, “trust me to lose it.” You smiled sadly, “Wish I could have given it to you sooner." You stood up from the dirt and didn’t say anything else, instead, you stepped back into the circle, thankful for the hand that Gally gave as he slid his into yours.

***

Everyone crowded into the booth of the diner that was not far from the cemetery. It became a tradition, each year since the first summer without Alby, to visit his grave and go to the diner and plan the next trip. Even in death, Alby brought you altogether.

“So, where was it?” Gally asked, having remembered your almost emotional breakdown when you couldn’t find it before the funeral. You were curled up amongst the mess of your room, clothes and shoes and things strewn across the floor, sobbing, and Gally tried to help but you could only scream angrily at him. It wasn’t a memory you liked to think about, but you were reminded how Gally was always there for you, even in the darker times.

“It was in a box of college stuff I packed away ages ago, in a jacket pocket…” You shook your head almost incredulous, “The amount of times I wore that jacket and never noticed…”

Teresa drank a mouthful of her milkshake before catching onto something, she was always pretty good at reading people, “What were you doing with a box of college things?”

You grinned sheepishly and glanced at Gally who only shrugged, causing your friends’ stares to grow confused. You stared at your hands as they fidgeted with your napkin, “I was going through some things… donating clothes, ‘coz I need to get rid of a lot of my stuff,” you looked up at them, “Gally and I are moving in together.”

Your friends’ eyes lit up at your news and they congratulated you and you were reminded of the time when you told them that Gally and you were official.

“Remember when you two just ignored your feelings for each other?” Newt started with a smile on his face, “and I had to bloody nudge you both closer and closer… such a simpler time, that was.”

You rolled your eyes at Newt but laughed at his joke, “I guess, to your credit, Newt, you probably helped us along.”

“Helped you along?” he started, almost baffled, “I practically got you two together! If it weren’t for me on that stormy night—”

“I remember you pissing me off, that’s it,” Gally remarked which Newt only grinned at.

“Exactly,” he stated, “the only way to get Gally on the move is to piss him off—”

“Oh, so you planned it all along, huh?”

Newt went to argue with him some more, but you cut them both off by saying, “Slim it, both of you, it’s been a long day and I would rather _not_ argue about my love life so openly.”

Newt smiled softly, his hair still a wild mess from the wind outside, “I’m just glad, for the both of you.”

You smiled at him and felt Gally’s hand on yours underneath the table.

“So,” Minho said as he rested his arms on top of the table, “where are we off to next?”

The group then proceeded to argue about holiday visits, it indeed had become tradition to visit Minho’s holiday home but something about this year set off a different vibe, a new place was on the table.

Thomas suddenly interrupted everybody’s arguing as he slammed his hands down onto the diner’s table, causing the few customers around to glance over their shoulders at the group, “If we don’t come to any kind of agreement, I’m flying off on my own to Fiji.”

“As if you even have the money to,” Newt remarked at which everyone giggled or laughed at.

You let them argue about where they wanted to go and stared out of the window beside you, it was drizzling again but only barely, there were water marks dripping down the glass and it blurred to blue and grey colours. You thought about the summer ahead of you and smiled to yourself and an overwhelming sense of thankfulness came over you: these friends you had, they were the best to come. And even though you were pulled apart by loss and grief, you found each other again, and you always would. 


End file.
